We can always get Neuvirth at deadline. (Just like Reimer)I'm okay with Dell as backup if only because he has done his time in the AHL and performed well on some bad teams. He's always looked good when I went to Barracuda games (perhaps it was luck of the draw, but I also saw some real Groesnick stinkers). He clearly had the trust of his teammates and he is at the age where it's time to see what he can do on the big stage.
My two caveats are: get him regular work early, and give him a little rope. Don't let a bad showing mean we ride Jones into the ground at least early in the season. Secondly, if for any reason it looks like he isn't capable of holding that second spot down after 30-40 games make the move to get a more established backup then instead of waiting until the deadline.
We can always get Neuvirth at deadline. (Just like Reimer)
We can always get Neuvirth at deadline. (Just like Reimer)
Besides what LS said, there's another problem with that idea: What about the 3/4 of the season before we get to the TDL? Yeah, we got Reimer, but how much better off would the team have been, even just from a rest perspective, if our backup had actually been able to give us a decent chance of winning the games he played in? Stalock felt almost like him playing was an auto-loss.
So yeah. I'd rather avoid all those issues and just get even Reimer-Lite to put back there, rather than trusting it to Dell. Don't get me wrong, for all I know Dell could play fantastic, and there's no issues at all. But we just don't know yet how he'll do with backup minutes in SJ.
The thing I don't like about this is that if Dell can't cut it, Sharks will have to deal an asset to pickup a backup while during the past week, at least a half dozen guys were signed that the Sharks could have had without giving up anything.
Maybe DW and PDB are counting on Armalis contending for backup?
For the sake of my marriage, lets hope Armalis is not on the team